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Elin

Parque Nacional, Portugal, October 2021

‘I went in too late,’ Bridie says, a quiet devastation in her eyes. ‘I’d heard the door of Kier’s van go earlier, but I thought she’d just gone outside for something. I shouldn’t have waited.’

‘You didn’t know.’ Maggie reaches over, takes Bridie’s hand in hers. ‘How were you to know?’

‘But Kier said she thought she was being watched. She told us, didn’t she? We should have been on high alert.’ Bridie’s voice stretches thin, to breaking point. ‘Never should have left her alone …’

Elin watches, silent, as Bridie starts to cry, her chest heaving.

It feels like it’s smothering her: not just the palpable weight of Bridie’s guilt, but the violence still lingering in the air from the horror she’s described. Though she’s trying to block it out, she can see in her mind’s eye exactly how it all played out – every scream, every ugly moment.

An image of Steed comes to her.

Elin pictures his face as he’d turned to look at her earlier, the raw hurt in his eyes. Although the evidence had been building to this moment, a part of her still longed for a different end to this story. Her heart aches for him, for his loss. Despite her anger at what he’d put her through, she knows what this will do to him, how it will tear him apart.

‘So Kier … she’s here, isn’t she?’ Elin’s asking the question, but part of her knows that Kier’s here, somewhere in the camp. Zeph too.

It was why the camp hadn’t moved on. Hadn’t escaped this nightmare.

They couldn’t. Couldn’t leave either of them behind.

For a long time, she says nothing, then finally, Bridie nods. ‘She’s here.’ Tears fall down her cheeks as she looks first at Maggie, then at Etta chattering to herself as she flicks through the book on the rug. ‘She isn’t far.’